linux mint’s “installers” can boot into a live environment.

office back in the 9x days you could just use all 1’s.

that’s the one i remember… and the picture of it next to the release countdown at microsoft’s offices.

i think the only things these days for ‘unactivated windows’ (home, pro editions) is inability to ‘customize the desktop’ (change wallpaper, theme…) and occasional activation nags.

it doesn’t quit working or shutdown (iirc enterprise or server trials do that after they expire, though) or quit getting updates or anything like that.

they actually still ‘win’, because you’re still using their platform.

more than half the households in my county do not have any high-speed wireline service available to them.

i can’t. unless i’m really, really tired. i prefer blankets… as in plural… with some bulk and weight to them.

and you could change him into something else. links the cat was mine.

captive portal detection, certificate status verification, and iirc server settings updates. yes. none of them are ‘absolutely required’ but they do exist to improve the reliability and secure operation of the program–and none are secret nasty spying telemetry. just turn those particular settings off as desired.

there is mv3 version of ubo here:
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home

dunno how well it works on yt, though. i use dlp on a pc for the time or two a month i ‘need to’ look at a yt vid.

adguard’s free browser extension is also mv3 compliant (for chrome). i think the old adblockplus (disable ‘acceptable ads’ and ignore offer to ‘upgrade’ to a paid version) is, too.

snapd is in debian repos so you can add it if you want, and then also integrate it into kde’s discover.

if you haven’t added the flathub repository to your new debian kde desktop install, discover will only show you packages from debian’s repositories that were automatically configured during installation… even if you’ve added the flatpak ‘backend’ from inside discover–flathub still has to be added to your sources (see step 3 in link above).

once you have multiple sources of an application (for instance, ‘vlc’), discover will add a ‘sources’ pulldown (top right, next to the ‘install’ button) where you can choose debian system package or flatpak (or snap, if configured).

which source you use is entirely up to you. on my own debian desktop, i usually stick with debs if it has what i’m looking for, as i’ve chosen debian and have accepted their pace at which new software is added. if i wanted ‘bleeding edge’ i would have installed something else entirely on it. but you can certainly go ‘all flatpak’ if you wanted to.

cookies are just text. they could literally contain an ip address or a hash or other identifier that refers to one.

spotify can’t directly obtain data from a linkedin cookie. but ad networks and other ‘third parties’ could provide ‘targeting’ or even identifying information to them.

use a different browser profile, or better–an entirely different browser–for vpn browsing.

besides these–which i occasionally use the oem option with… i just put endless on one here, it also sets up the initial user during the first boot after install.

the oem install option that is available with ubuntu and some ubuntu-based ones lets you do some initial extra package installs and stuff, though. you run a command linked on the oeminstall desktop when you’re finished with your ‘preinstall’.

aptitude has been my go-to since at least woody or potato.

possible. theirs might just become ‘third party’ cookies.

but i think they’re confident that they will not have to give up anything tangible in the current proceedings. toss a little more money into the diaper pail, case is mysteriously dropped or government remedy neutered to a “try not to do that again”.

i don’t see it that way. i see pacman, apt, and rpm.

the unique GUID in the device’s rom is what they tie your license to.

unraid does have instructions and software as zip files for manually preparing a flash drive to run their software from. you don’t have to use their scary binary media creator tool. see here

muskrat still has that hallucination that everybody’s gonna be riding around in fully-autonomous self-driving teslas, right? so that’d mean this case will be ‘‘allowed’’ to proceed.

of all that shit microsoft forces upon you…

it’s the msa (online microsoft account) that’s the biggest deal-breaker for me.

absolutely not. never gonna happen.